Countries with more young males export fewer goods and services.
Comparing Exports of goods and services (current US$) with Population ages 0-14, male, per capita across 183 countries, 2025–2025.
- Rank correlation
- -0.57
- Holding size constant
- -0.71
- Countries compared
- 183
- Period
- 2025–2025
What might link these
A younger male population may reduce labor force participation or shift resources toward domestic needs, lowering export capacity. Alternatively, countries with lower GDP per capita (often correlated with higher youth dependency) may prioritize internal consumption over exports.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The relationship could be driven by unmeasured factors like education levels or industrial structure.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.